Pecan Topped Cranberry Cake

I still had a ton of cranberries left from cranberry picking so I made this beautiful cake from The Kitchn.

 
Pecan Topped Cranberry Cake (from The Kitchn)
makes one 9x13-inch or one 10-inch springform cake

For the cake

3 eggs
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened and cut into chunks
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups flour (I substituted in 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour)
2 1/2 cups cranberries (1 bag)

For the pecan topping

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup pecans, toasted

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9x13 pan or a 10" springform pan. (I cut up the butter and transferred them to the pan to soften on top of the oven range.)

Beat eggs and sugar together for at least 5 minutes — probably as long as 7 or 8 minutes — the egg and sugar mixture should double in volume and turn pale yellow, leaving ribbons on top of the batter when you lift the beaters.

Add the butter and flavorings and beat for 2 more minutes. Stir in flour and fold in cranberries. Pour into greased pan.

To make the pecan topping, heat the butter in a pan over medium-high heat. Add the sugar and stir.

Add the toasted pecans and cook for several minutes, stirring, until the butter and sugar mixture is shiny and smooth and the nuts smell toasted. Spread over the cake batter.

 
Bake 45-50 minutes for a 9x13, or a little over an hour for the springform. You may need to tent the cake with foil in the last 15 minutes or so to keep the top from browning.

 

Cool completely before serving.

Next time I'd probably make more of the pecan topping since that was my favorite part of the cake, and there was barely enough to cover the top of the cake.  This cake is on the heavier side, almost like a pound cake.  I stored it covered at room temperature for 5 days, and it was still moist and yummy on the last day.

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Cranberry Royale Sorbet

Last week I got to go on a Cranberry Farm Picking Experience with Colonial Lantern Tours.  I've gone apple picking and strawberry picking before, but this was the first time I've ever gone cranberry picking.  No, we didn't get to put on those rubber overalls and wade in a cranberry bog, but we did get to see how a flooded cranberry bog is harvested and also how cranberries are dry harvested.  Lastly, we got to hand pick our own cranberries!  Fun fact:  only 10% of cranberries are dry harvested, and only the dry harvested cranberries will be sold fresh in stores.  The other 90% are wet harvested and will go into cranberry products like cranberry sauce and cranberry juice.

 
Even before I went on the tour, I started looking up cranberry recipes to try.  The ones that caught my eye were a bittersweet cranberry brownie and a pecan topped cranberry cake.  Then my friend Ellen suggested that I make Jeni's Cranberry Royale Sorbet.  And boy, am I glad she did. 

Cranberry Royale Sorbet from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home
makes about 1 quart

2 grapefruits (you need enough to get 3/4 cup of juice; I needed 1 1/2 large grapefruits)
One 12-ounce bag cranberries (fresh or frozen)
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons water
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1 1/2 cups sugar

 
Using a vegetable peeler, remove 3 large strips of zest from 1 of the grapefruits. Halve the grapefruits and squeeze 3/4 cup juice.

 

Combine the grapefruit juice, zest, cranberries, water, corn syrup, and sugar in a 4-quart saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil just until the cranberries begin to pop open, about 5 minutes. (My cranberries started to pop before it was anywhere close to boiling, so I just put a splatter screen on top of the saucepan and continued to heat the pan.) Remove from the heat and let cool.

 

Remove the grapefruit zest. If desired, puree the cranberry mixtures in batches, or leave unpureed for a chunkier sorbet.

 

Chill the mixtue and then freeze in an ice cream maker. Spin just until the consistency of very softly whipped cream.

 

Pack the sorbet into a storage container, press a sheet of parchment directly against the surface, and seal with an airtight lid. Freeze in the coldest part of your freezer until firm, at least 4 hours.

  

On the following page in her book, there's a gorgeous picture of an Oslo Ambrosia sundae, which consists of a meringue topped with raspberry lingonberry sauce, a scoop of the Cranberry Royale, and topped with cardamon scented whipped cream.  I just knew I had to try to make this sundae, if only because it looked so pretty.  Instead of making a raspberry lingonberry sauce, though, I just saved a few tablespoons of the sorbet base before it was frozen and added a spoonful of raspberry preserves.

 

I also used coconut whipped cream instead of dairy whipped cream and should be posting that recipe soon.  (Edited to add:  here's the post!)

 

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Apple-Pear-Cranberry Crisp

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! What are you thankful for this year? Me, I'm thankful that I got to travel to a lot of different countries (Czech Republic, Bolivia, Aruba, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Egypt!), for new friends that I've made, and that my brother got married to a wonderful girl!

I almost always staying in Boston for Thanksgiving since my home in Ohio is really too far away to drive to and too expensive to fly to for such a short break. But it's become tradition to celebrate with other Thanksgiving "orphans", and this year I went over to Oeimae, Yumi (thanks for the invite!), and Judy's apartment in Brookline for yet another potluck. This time, I wanted to use up the two pears and two apples I had gotten in my Boston Organics delivery, so I decided to make a apple-pear crisp. But just those 4 fruits didn't seem to be enough for the 9"x13" pan, so I bought a bag of fresh cranberries to add to the mix for some color and tartness.

Apple-Pear-Cranberry Crisp
makes 24 servings

2 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced (I used Fuji apples)
2 pears, peeled, cored, and sliced (I used one Bosc and one Concord pear)
1 bag fresh cranberries
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 dash nutmeg
1 1/2 cups flour and 1 tablespoon flour, divided
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups oats
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cups butter, cut into pieces

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Toss the apple and pear slices with the cinnamon, nutmeg, and 1 tablespoon flour. Add the cranberries and sugar. Toss to mix. Place in a 9"x13" baking dish.

In a large bowl, add the remaining ingredients and cut the butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles a coarse meal. You can also use a food processor to do this, but I enjoy doing it with my hands.

Spread the topping evenly over the fruit. Bake for 45 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream!

That last part of the recipe is key. Even though there's a whole cup of sugar in the fruit filling, the fresh cranberries are really quite tart. Eating this crisp with ice cream mellows out the fruit so that the sum is much greater than its parts.

This recipe can be adapted to other fruits as well. You can omit the cranberries and use more of the apples or pears. A peach or cherry crisp is another possibility, but you'd have to adjust the amount of sugar since those fruits are already quite sweet.

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